HUG Artificial Reef Electricity

Artificial Reefs

The HUGArtificial Reef is a game changer. It promises to bring electricity created from ocean waves to the islands of the world at a very low cost.Artificial reefs, at 4, have long been on the forefront of surfers’ minds. They can create very high slab waves, at 1.

This is how a wave builds after it hits a focus point. The parallel wave fronts arriving at the coast need to be deflected on an angle over a head or focus, called a pointbreak.

The wave is pushed up further than it normally would by 200%- 250%.This rising causes the wave to peel at only one place but as it proceeds towards shallower water over the wall of a reservoir along the wedge or the wall of the reservoir. The wave peels further and further, while keeping its height. What surfing and how safe!

Another idea is to throw a big plastic bubble onto the sea floor, where waves normally close out, and as swell passes over the giant bubble, waves will form.

Why not just fill it with water? No, because the energy would just travel through the water inside the bubble and out the other side. Filling the structures with air makes a solid swell break, forcing the energy in the wave to bend around it. Yet, one problem is that waves do not like to break and barrel over a perfect circular surface.

Yet, how exactly do you tether a gigantic bubble to the sea floor? Bubbles float. The bigger the bubble, the more buoyant, and the more buoyant, the harder it is to keep down, especially when the anchor is sitting in something that shifts so easily, like sand on the sea floor. There is an underestimation on the part of the engineers of the need for a proper foundation. If this system is used, we need a type of sand anchor: a helical pier system. We also need a focus:

To date there have been fewer than ten attempts to build such a reef worldwide:

Many artificial reefs are comprised of sand bags. Sand has an excellent ability to stay put. Made locally of a geotextile material and weighing between 150 and 300 tonnes, about 400 such bags were filled with sand pumped to the site and dropped from a dredge according to precise global positioning co-ordinates.

There has really been no great success as it pertains to surfing. Over time, the artificial reef with textile bags will fail 100% of the time. Sure it might work for a few months or years, but that’s it!

WHY THE FAILURE?

The project usually starts with an erosion problem. The artificial reef could be considered multi functional because it create a safe surfing environment. So surfers get a freebie. The municipality that is footing the bill can only afford to pay $5 million tops. There’s the problem: every artificial reef has been under-financed because there was simply no return on investment.

Now enter a new use which is more profitable: the creation of electricity. Now it makes sense to spend over $25 million on the project because of a very lucrative return on investments: 19%/yearin first year to 105%/year thereafter.

THINKING “OUT OF THE BOX”

We have been waiting for a wave energy solution for the last 40 years. There have been a dozen approaches with a lot of activity in the last ten years, but there have been no resounding commercial successes. Most ideas are replicated from other ideas in the box.

This HUGWave Energy System is “out of the box” and it will cause an Energy Revolution.

The slab wave send seawater very high over top the reef crest at C above. The body of water at B behind the reef is raised 6 m by slab waves and drains to the sea level after activating a turbine, which energizes an electric generator.

There are a number of reasons why one should build a HUG Wave Energy System on a reef:

The amount of rubble required for both the road and the walls of the reservoir is 25% less on terra firma than in the water of a lagoon or shallow shore location.

There is less need to provide a buttress against harsh waves because we use the natural wall of the reef.

There is greater access to high deep ocean waves than average waves created near the shallow shore.

BUILDING THE HUGARTIFICIAL REEF

It is possible to use an on board crane and barge to transfer rubble to the reef site or alternatively, to build a road in the shallow lagoon separating the reef from the shore.The formula for Kinetic Energy is

KE= ½ x A x V 3 x (.35) efficiency (A = area swept; Velocity)

Diameter of the Helical Turbine in the HUG is 1 m. The radius is 0.5 m: A = π r2 = π (0.5)2 = .785 m2

HIGH WAVES DURING STRONG PREVAILING WIND

The overtopping technique which creates a high slab wave created by an artificial reef allows for more flexibility: the HUGcan be located in more places facing the prevailing winds that may only have moderate wave action. Other overtopping wave energy systems have to be built where there are high waves, which may be too far away from the population. The HUG system creates slab waves from average wave action.

The HUG has very low cost of construction: an artificial reef, a reservoir and the light-weight HUG System

The artificial reef used by the HUG, if properly built can withstand strong ocean waves, storms or typhoons. The HUG themselves are protected by the artificial reef and the wall of the reservoir.

On average, a competitive wave power plant can cost around $6-10 million to create one Megawatt of electricity. The average HUG Power Plant produces 1.5 MW to 9.3 MW for a $25 million investmentearning an average of $3 million/year for a Return on Investment of 12% in the first year. The operating cost is very low during its entire life-time of 30 years: $0.018/kWh. An annual offsetting green energy grant of $0.01/kWh will reduce this operating cost. The selling price exceeds $0.08/kWh. The comparative price in Hawaii exceeds $0.30/kWh. (The pay-back period is estimated to be one year in Hawaii.)

Reliable: not like solar or wind energy with no noise pollution and no oil spills or coal deaths.

Area Efficiency: less than a half square mile of ocean produced 300 MW (the density of water is 800 times higher than air)

Flexibility: they can be located along the shore where most populations exist and where there are prevailing winds.

Ideal for Islands: that depend on expensive imported oil

Predictable and Consistent: in areas of prevailing winds

The HUGdoes not disrupt marine life. Any fish caught in the turbine will experience a twist but they will not be chopped up.

The HUG can be located in more places that only have moderate wave action.

Wave power doesn’t get much attention, but technologies for extracting energy from ocean motion could end up following the same growth curves that we have seen for wind and, more recently, solar power. A theme among wave power experts is that wave energy is where wind energy was three decades ago.

There are over a dozen different approaches to solving the wave energy problem:

The closest concept to the HUG Wave Energy System is the Wave Dragon overtopping device as shown above. The difference is that the above system is built like a large heavy ship so as not to be jostled by strong waves. Their system does not use the physics of the slab wave and the principle of the vortex, which creates much higher velocity. Hence, in order to maximize the velocity of the waves, they are forced to place their system in the location of high waves, which may not be a convenient location.

THE HUG BUILT RIGHT IN THE CITY OF LAGOS, NIGERIAA WAVE WALL ON THE LAGOS BEECH

The HUG can be located in places with average ocean waves close to populations:

There have been a lot of wasted efforts in solving wave energy problems because of wrong pathways: too big, too mechanical. There have been no real great commercial successes. This may be the real reason why big companies like GE have not entered into the fray.

Besides providing electricity, the HUGWave Energy System can produce hydrogen, which is less expensive than imported oil to the islands and is more environmentally sustainable. The secret of hydrogen electrolysis is the low cost of electricity, which must be kept under $0.05/kWh. The high cost of transmission of hydrogen can be eliminated by building hydrogen filling stations for automobiles and trucks right at the site of HUGWave Energy System: the frontage on shore ranges up to 280 m.

Besides providing electricity, the HUGWave Energy System can provide fresh water from an electrolysis system that is activated by high pressure water: a Reverse Osmosis Desalination process. Typical operating costs will range from $2/Kgal of fresh water, because of the low price of electricity:$0.01/kWh

Wherever there are surfers on any island or in any ocean going country, you can create electricity.Around the coasts of Northern Ireland and the west coast of Scotland, are some of the richest reserves of renewable energy in Europe, with the strongest winds and the largest waves.

The HUG Artificial Reef will provide safesurfing on great slab waves over 200′ long close to population centers in a tourist area without the danger of sharp rock formations and urchins.